After that she was sent out to sell Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics on street corners. (A Scientology spokesperson responds: "The Church does not punish people, especially in [that] manner.")

a few years back i had a few hours to kill on Hollywood and Vine, and I found teh "Celebrity Center" church thingie. this young woman was trying to get me to tour the L. Ron Hubbard musuem, and I figured, what the hell, why not, and then she's like, "ok but then we have to audit you afterwards" (or some kind of talk with someone). I was likes, "I don't want that, but can I just tour the museum?" and she insisted only if I did the audit or whatever.

anyways what i remember also was that she was very manic about the whole thing. she was a little too invested in what she was doing. crazy eyes.

I wish to living hell that SOMEONE with some stones within our government, the IRS in particular, would stand up and take this hellish cult down and stomp them into the dirt. It's a cult that bullied the IRS into getting it's tax exemption, has ruined lives and even killed people.

/SP all the frickin' way, baby! Come get me, Miscavige, you sawed off little prick.

This is not really being "revealed" as it has been well known since 2005, although I'm sure Vanity Fair is exposing new details. If you followed any of the Hollywood celebrity blogs at the time, this was being detailed as it was happening, which made it that much weirder when Cruise found a "taker" -- Holmes had to have known this auditioning process was going on. That always led credibility to the rumor that there was a business agreement between them.

My favorite story was about Scarlett Johansson getting called in around this time for what she thought was a meeting about a movie role, and then Cruise takes her into a room in one of Scientology's buildings and all of the cult's leaders are sitting there like they were waiting for her. She was smart enough to walk away.

zappaisfrank:I wish to living hell that SOMEONE with some stones within our government, the IRS in particular, would stand up and take this hellish cult down and stomp them into the dirt. It's a cult that bullied the IRS into getting it's tax exemption, has ruined lives and even killed people.

/SP all the frickin' way, baby! Come get me, Miscavige, you sawed off little prick.

CONSTITUTION DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY.

/That said I have no idea why any church is tax exempt. Seems like a violation of the establishment clause to me.

shower_in_my_socks:My favorite story was about Scarlett Johansson getting called in around this time for what she thought was a meeting about a movie role, and then Cruise takes her into a room in one of Scientology's buildings and all of the cult's leaders are sitting there like they were waiting for her. She was smart enough to walk away.

I heard she took out a room full of guys, impaled Tom Cruise ass-first into a statue of L. Ron Hubbard while making a bazaar quip about "midget-thetan porn", set explosive charges on all the building's load bearing members, freed all the captives in the basement and walked away in slow motion as the building blew up behind her.

zappaisfrank:I wish to living hell that SOMEONE with some stones within our government, the IRS in particular, would stand up and take this hellish cult down and stomp them into the dirt. It's a cult that bullied the IRS into getting it's tax exemption, has ruined lives and even killed people.

/SP all the frickin' way, baby! Come get me, Miscavige, you sawed off little prick.

shower_in_my_socks:This is not really being "revealed" as it has been well known since 2005, although I'm sure Vanity Fair is exposing new details. If you followed any of the Hollywood celebrity blogs at the time, this was being detailed as it was happening, which made it that much weirder when Cruise found a "taker" -- Holmes had to have known this auditioning process was going on. That always led credibility to the rumor that there was a business agreement between them.

My favorite story was about Scarlett Johansson getting called in around this time for what she thought was a meeting about a movie role, and then Cruise takes her into a room in one of Scientology's buildings and all of the cult's leaders are sitting there like they were waiting for her. She was smart enough to walk away.

I thought it was Katie's mother who pushed her into it, saw it as good money and exposure, while her dad publically seethed?

rickythepenguin:After that she was sent out to sell Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics on street corners. (A Scientology spokesperson responds: "The Church does not punish people, especially in [that] manner.")

a few years back i had a few hours to kill on Hollywood and Vine, and I found teh "Celebrity Center" church thingie. this young woman was trying to get me to tour the L. Ron Hubbard musuem, and I figured, what the hell, why not, and then she's like, "ok but then we have to audit you afterwards" (or some kind of talk with someone). I was likes, "I don't want that, but can I just tour the museum?" and she insisted only if I did the audit or whatever.

anyways what i remember also was that she was very manic about the whole thing. she was a little too invested in what she was doing. crazy eyes.

But there's never been ANY whisper about him being gay. I just don't get it.

It's actually giving Cruise the benefit of the doubt. Scientology requires full disclosure of your darkest secrets during auditing sessions. The church has been repeatedly accused of blackmailing members of the CoS who try to leave by threatening to disclose these secrets. Dianetics also claimed it could cure homosexuality, so supposedly CoS attracts a unusually high amount of self-loathing homosexuals seeking a gay cure..

It's sort of a "Tom Cruise really isn't that farking crazy, he's just being blackmailed."

But there's never been ANY whisper about him being gay. I just don't get it.

The more I read about him, the more I believe he's not gay OR straight - just asexual. Scientology obviously wants to paint him to the public as a virile straight man, but they've exerted so much effort in that that the net result has been people thinking, "He's trying too hard, so he's clearly gay." I just think he's tremendously uncomfortable around women romantically.

It's actually giving Cruise the benefit of the doubt. Scientology requires full disclosure of your darkest secrets during auditing sessions. The church has been repeatedly accused of blackmailing members of the CoS who try to leave by threatening to disclose these secrets. Dianetics also claimed it could cure homosexuality, so supposedly CoS attracts a unusually high amount of self-loathing homosexuals seeking a gay cure..

It's sort of a "Tom Cruise really isn't that farking crazy, he's just being blackmailed."

Given how Miscavige is perceived as his best friend, I don't buy this either.

ExperianScaresCthulhu:zappaisfrank: I wish to living hell that SOMEONE with some stones within our government, the IRS in particular, would stand up and take this hellish cult down and stomp them into the dirt. It's a cult that bullied the IRS into getting it's tax exemption, has ruined lives and even killed people.

/SP all the frickin' way, baby! Come get me, Miscavige, you sawed off little prick.

What did they have on Clinton? since it was during his watch.

On Oct. 8, 1993, 10,000 cheering Scientologists thronged the Los Angeles Sports Arena to celebrate the most important milestone in the church's recent history: victory in its all-out war against the Internal Revenue Service.

For 25 years, IRS agents had branded Scientology a commercial enterprise and refused to give it the tax exemption granted to churches. The refusals had been upheld in every court. But that night the crowd learned of an astonishing turnaround. The IRS had granted tax exemptions to every Scientology entity in the United States.

"The war is over," David Miscavige, the church's leader, declared to tumultuous applause.

The landmark reversal shocked tax experts and saved the church tens of millions of dollars in taxes. More significantly, the decision was an invaluable public relations tool in Scientology's worldwide campaign for acceptance as a mainstream religion.

On the basis of the IRS ruling, the State Department formally criticized Germany for discriminating against Scientologists. The German government regards the organization as a business, not a tax-exempt religion, the very position maintained for 25 years by the U.S. government.

The full story of the turnabout by the IRS has remained hidden behind taxpayer privacy laws for nearly four years. But an examination by The New York Times found that the exemption followed a series of unusual internal IRS actions that came after an extraordinary campaign orchestrated by Scientology against the agency and people who work there. Among the findings of the review by The New York Times, based on more than 30 interviews and thousands of pages of public and internal church records, were these:

Scientology's lawyers hired private investigators to dig into the private lives of IRS officials and to conduct surveillance operations to uncover potential vulnerabilities, according to interviews and documents. One investigator said he had interviewed tenants in buildings owned by three IRS officials, looking for housing code violations. He also said he had taken documents from an IRS conference and sent them to church officials and created a phony news bureau in Washington to gather information on church critics. The church also financed an organization of IRS whistle-blowers that attacked the agency publicly.

The decision to negotiate with the church came after Fred T. Goldberg Jr., the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service at the time, had an unusual meeting with Miscavige in 1991. Scientology's own version of what occurred offers a remarkable account of how the church leader walked into IRS headquarters without an appointment and got in to see Goldberg, the nation's top tax official. Miscavige offered to call a halt to Scientology's suits against the IRS in exchange for tax exemptions.

After that meeting, Goldberg created a special committee to negotiate a settlement with Scientology outside normal agency procedures. When the committee determined that all Scientology entities should be exempt from taxes, IRS tax analysts were ordered to ignore the substantive issues in reviewing the decision, according to IRS memorandums and court files.

The IRS refused to disclose any terms of the agreement, including whether the church was required to pay back taxes, contending that it was confidential taxpayer information. The agency has maintained that position in a lengthy court fight, and in rejecting a request for access by The New York Times under the Freedom of Information Act. But the position is in stark contrast to the agency's handling of some other church organizations. Both the Jimmy Swaggart Ministries and an affiliate of the Rev. Jerry Falwell were required by the IRS to disclose that they had paid back taxes in settling disputes in recent years.

In interviews, senior Scientology officials and the IRS denied that the church's aggressive tactics had any effect on the agency's decision.

They said the ruling was based on a two-year inquiry and voluminous documents that showed the church was qualified for the exemptions.

Goldberg, who left as IRS commissioner in January 1992 to become an assistant secretary at the Treasury Department, said privacy laws prohibited him from discussing Scientology or his impromptu meeting with Miscavige.

The meeting was not listed on Goldberg's appointment calendar, which was obtained by The New York Times through the Freedom of Information Act.

Basically they carpet bombed the IRS with lawsuits and got some dirt on it's director. Sorry, you can't blame this one on Clinton.

It's sort of a "Tom Cruise really isn't that farking crazy, he's just being blackmailed."

I don't know about that. I don't think he's gay. I sort of view him in a Michael Jackson kind of scenario (No, not the pedo part). We're looking at a man who simply doesn't know how to act any differently. He probably has no concept of reality. While Jackson got that way by not having anything even resembling a normal childhood, Cruise just sort of got derailed by the Scientology crowd and his fame. The article sort of hints he's constantly surrounded by handlers and people to screen things for him.

Think of the most rabid political shill you can, the type where no type of reality or facts gets them to even second guess themself because of the constantly reinforcement of their reality they get from their own echo chamber. That's my guess for an explanation into Cruise's behavior and his relationships.

if you Farkers dislike the Scientology philosophy so rabidly, why don't you all do something about it? seems to be public knowledge who is and isn't a scientologist.

don't go see their movies.

don't buy their music recordings.

don't buy or read the books they write.

don't do anything that in any way would contribute to the cause or coffers that you find so very offensive.

over & over i try to explain how important The Dollar Vote is in america. our presidential vote and our voice means nothing in this lovely country. but you stop handing some scumbag a portion of your paycheck and in time that entity will cease to exist. exercise your dollar vote people, and encourage others to do the same.

Why do conservatives always think Islam is some kind of magic wildcard they can toss out to win any argument?

Why do liberals think you have to be "conservative" to recognize Islam as a rotten religion?

/Yes, all religions are rotten and blah blah, quack quack, woof woof

Why do you think I'm defending Islam? I'm just pointing out that he's of the conservative mindset that you can make random "Oh yeah, well what about Islam?" statements and mistake that for a meaningful argument.

Mugato:shower_in_my_socks: My favorite story was about Scarlett Johansson getting called in around this time for what she thought was a meeting about a movie role, and then Cruise takes her into a room in one of Scientology's buildings and all of the cult's leaders are sitting there like they were waiting for her. She was smart enough to walk away.

I heard she took out a room full of guys, impaled Tom Cruise ass-first into a statue of L. Ron Hubbard while making a bazaar quip about "midget-thetan porn", set explosive charges on all the building's load bearing members, freed all the captives in the basement and walked away in slow motion as the building blew up behind her.

-Written and Directed by Joss Whedon

This is the third or fourth time I've seen this exact mistake lately, and i really don't get it. Either you are completely unaware that is the wrong word or... you spelled it just wrong enough that spellcheck chose a homophone and you didn't notice?

InmanRoshi:If we're going to start going after cults, can we start with the worldwide pedophile ring headquartered in Italy first?

Some people prefer to fight wars they can actually win. As much as Scientology tends to lawyer up anytime anyone tries to go after them, they don't have the political clout of the aforementioned organization headquartered in Italy. One could argue that one does do SOME good around the world instead of merely brainwashing and milking people out of all of their money.

zappaisfrank:I wish to living hell that SOMEONE with some stones within our government, the IRS in particular, would stand up and take this hellish cult down and stomp them into the dirt. It's a cult that bullied the IRS into getting it's tax exemption, has ruined lives and even killed people.

/SP all the frickin' way, baby! Come get me, Miscavige, you sawed off little prick.

I know! Why would the government allow a worldwide intelligence gathering network to exist, especially one that purposely finds gullible people that are easily manipulated into doing almost anything?